


Patience and Heather

by Ketakoshka



Series: Dread Child Jon [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Creepy Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Eldritch Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Grim Reapers, Growing Up Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27952346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ketakoshka/pseuds/Ketakoshka
Summary: They meet by chance again and again, until Oliver can't get Jon out of his head.-Jon is the End's kid.
Relationships: Oliver Banks/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Dread Child Jon [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884709
Comments: 6
Kudos: 133





	Patience and Heather

Gloria Harris is one of many Deaths that have come and gone in Jonathan Azrael Khalidan's short life, but somehow her transition is the worst.

Jon knows better than to get attached, but Gloria has been around since his 'birth' and helped Lauri Khalidan to raise the Endling into the respectable thirteen-year-old he is now. She was the one who taught him how to ride a bike and tie his shoes and braid his hair and…

Gloria, just as much as Lauri, was his mother.

He was so excited for her to come back; they were going to play chess and watch  _ Halloween III. _ Instead, someone  _ stole  _ her place amongst the deaths… a frightened, miserable human  _ stole his Mama away _ …

Lauri wasn't surprised to find that Jon ran away.

* * *

Oliver Banks shakes his head at the screaming children on the park's playground, only brightening when he hears the beads at the ends of his cornrows make a clacking noise. His aunt put them there earlier in the morning, and the memory of her fingers running along his scalp makes him fuzzy inside.

It almost chases away the lingering hurt of being ignored by everyone here. Almost.

Sudden movement to the left catches his attention, and when he turns, there's a short boy about his age looking at him with a wistful yet pained edge to his smile. His skin is lighter than Oliver's but certainly not white… almost as if he were…

"Do you mind if I stay here awhile?"

A gentle voice cuts through the noise without effort, as if it just commanded the world to quiet in just that one moment, and Oliver finds himself mesmerized by dark purple eyes… can a human's eyes even look like that?

"...go for it."

"Thank you." With a soft smile, the boy kicks off and swings rather gracefully… is the wind even blowing anymore?

There are few words spoken between them, but the silence isn’t oppressive. Whenever Jon speaks, the world goes almost dead silent, and when Oliver does, those purple eyes are fixated solely on him. It’s a strange sort of companionable silence, one that promises exactly nothing yet seems like the start of... something.

A half hour later, Oliver’s father comes to collect him, a tired smile on his face. Jon seems to regard the man with suspicion until Oliver turns back to the other boy and waves. “See you around?”   
There’s a strange gleam in those purple eyes as Jon tilts his head and smiles just a touch too wide. “Probably… I don’t know when, but I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

* * *

Again is four months later on the bus packed with rowdy school children, harried teachers, and a few annoyed passengers. Oliver’s school had decided that a field trip to the local art museum was in order, not that it would be interesting for the children, really. Jon’s seated in the back of the bus alone, purposely keeping his gaze away from the swarm of children that mob the remaining seats. After a moment, Oliver, having no seat, not that he would have wanted to sit next to the majority of his classmates, walks to the very back, past his teachers and the kind woman who offered up her seat to a very quiet girl. He notices with amusement that the other still hasn’t looked away from the window.

“Do you mind if I stay here a while?” Oliver asks, purposely mirroring what was asked in the park.

Jon turns his head sharply, eyes widening as he takes in the sight of the boy he’d thought was so very sweet a few months before. “Oliver?”

“Hi, Jon…”

The smaller boy turns to face the other more and pats the seat. “Sit! Sit!” He’s so enthusiastic that it catches the attention of the adults and directs amused and endeared looks their way.

* * *

T wenty minutes later, the bus pulls up to a little, cozy mortuary with blue shutters, light gray bricks, and a cobblestone pathway surrounded by blood red roses. “Jonathan,” the driver calls out, never once turning back to look at the boy who he knows is holed up in the back. “I think your mother is waiting for you.”

True to his word, Lauri Kahlidan is waiting on that cobblestone path with a rather severe expression on her face.

“When isn’t she waiting on me?” he retorts, but there’s no venom in his voice.

“When you don’t run off without telling anyone I expect,” the elderly man replies.

Jon rolls his eyes but makes his way around the adults and the watchful eyes of snickering children. “To be fair, I did tell her new assistant, Virgil. It’s not my fault if he didn’t tell her.”

As if the few moments it took for Jon to make his way up to the door was too long, Lauri had marched up to the end of the path, her long blue dress sweeping out into the edge of the road. “Jonathan Azrael Kahlidan! You are in so much trouble mister!”

Those closest to Jon can barely hear him say, “what else is new,” before he walks off the bus and doesn’t look back.

* * *

There's a weird plant growing in his yard.

The newly-turned sixteen year-old Oliver Banks finds himself tending to the black… rose bush(?) at least once a week. It's a new house, one on a street suddenly plagued by madness. 

A woman down the street got hit by drunk driver.

A dog contracted rabies and ripped out a toddler's throat.

An elderly woman sat on her front porch and died. No one realized for almost two days.

A teenaged girl ran away from home; she was brought back in a body bag two days later.

A mother of twins had a still-birth. Her husband blamed himself.

It's been less than three months since they moved here, and the bush just keeps blooming in time with the deaths that come. Oliver’s father calls it superstitious nonsense, but Oliver knows the truth… It's Jon.

From that bus ride onward, Oliver often found himself crossing paths with a boy, now young man, with a too wide smile full of just a bit too sharp of teeth and inhuman purple eyes. Jon was always delighted to see him, always excited to spend even the smallest of seconds at his side. Sometimes, it would be at the playground where the wind would turn silent to let them speak. Others, it would be at places where Jon shouldn't have been alone – a doctor's office, a grungy overpass, a rest stop on the highway with no other cars.

Oliver knew that it was strange, but it was so very Jon… and that made it okay.

Oliver vividly remembers the day he turned fifteen when Jon appeared outside of his house with a black,  _ squirming _ plant in his grip. He remembers how it curled around his fingers, the thorns cutting into his skin and leeching blood before pulling back as though he'd never been pierced. He remembers the way Jon called it a declaration of their relationship – was it still friendship then, or had they broken some unspoken rule that made it impossible to be separated?

Oliver came to know what the plant is… a corpse root. He knows what it signifies now, and he loves it so.

* * *

"Oliver?"

Said avatar hums in response but doesn't look up from his book; if it's important Jon will let him know.

"I want to plant a garden."

Oliver looks up from his book to find purple lights staring back from his husband’s face. "Okay…"

It's such a simple, normal request; it's not particularly out of character for Jon to ask such things. It's just… In these moments, where Jon seems a bit more human than before, Oliver likes to look at his eyes. Purple like the heather plants that grow around their blessed corpse root, Jon's eyes are all he needs to remind himself that this… this never needs to change.

Oliver’s never going to leave Jon behind.

**Author's Note:**

> The next is Extinction, but it's kind of kicking my ass from an I don't wanna standpoint since it'll be mostly canon compliant.


End file.
